Saturday, April 28, 2012

I present to you some of the photogenic female recruits from Platoon 4 of Pegasus company. Cute right? Which one do you like? But don't play play hur, I've been told that most of them are scholars and are destined to become future officers in the Singapore Army. We salute you female soldiers of Pegasus company. And if you do end up becoming officers, please don't bully your men can?

The folks at SingTel announced on their Facebook an exclusive, limited edition The Avengers priority card in partnership with Marvel. Unfortunately for them, their Avengers Promo on Facebook is becoming a place for disgruntled SingTel customers to complain about SingTel's service. Here are some of the comments from angry SingTel users that I extracted.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

The Lyrid meteor shower peaks this weekend. The annual meteor shower can be seen worldwide. This year, conditions are very favourable because of the absence of the bright moon. The Lyrid meteors will shoot across the sky from the constellation of Lyra which rises only after midnight.

The best time for us in Singapore to start observing this meteor shower is probably around 3am to 4am (Sunday morning) when the constellation is higher in the sky. The Lyrids should be active all the way till before sunrise.

Find a dark location away from light pollution, face the north-eastern sky and lie down and get comfortable. You don't need a telescope or binoculars to observe a meteor shower. On average, you should be able to spot up to 20 Lyrids per hour in excellent conditions. And if you are lucky, you may catch an outburst.

For those of you who wish to view the Lyrids from the comfort of your home, a live video feed of the Lyrid meteor shower will be embedded on NASA's webpage. Good luck and clear skies.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

48 men have been charged in Singapore for having paid sex with an underage escort. (Above: A parody of a screenshot of the social escort website.) The men aged 21 to 48, include a former police superintendent, military officers, a lawyer, businessmen, people in finance and other professions. The girl who was advertised as an 18 year old on a social escort website turned out to be 17 when she had sex with those men. It is illegal to have paid sex with someone who is under 18 in Singapore. The girl's identity has been withheld by the courts but even a gag order couldn't prevent her pics and name being circulated on popular Singapore web forums and Facebook. Her name was even one of the most searched items on Google today according to Google Trends.

(Above: The actual booking page for the hardcore underage prostitute.) We all pay for sex one way or another. These men paid for it in cash (prostitution is legal in Singapore) expecting to be serve by an 18 year old but were terribly misled and now they have to suffer the consequences of their actions while the girl is being protected by law because she is under 18 and will most likely escape any form of punishment.

And that saddens me. It is one thing to protect a minor but the law is there not only to convict people who do the crime but also to prevent the crime from happening in the first place. This very much publicised case involving the underage girl and the more than 40 men will not deter underage prostitution in Singapore but encourages it. Girls who are 16, 17 now know they can get away with it by getting into prostitution to earn easy money and lying about their age. They are untouchable and the men they serve become the victims.

In Singapore, you are old enough to have sex when you turn 16 but the law doesn't think that you have fair decision making skills to sell your body for sex until you are 18. Something is seriously wrong here.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Never leave the train station without the SMRT excuse chit during the next train disruption. Ask for one when you are late for work, school, exams, paktor, etc. Above are photos of the excuse chits issued by Bishan and Tiong Bahru SMRT station. You can email SMRT Customer Relations at corpcomms@smrt.com.sg or get it from the Station Control. Looking at how often train disruptions occur nowadays, it's very likely that SMRT will be issuing a lot - and I mean A LOT - of excuse chits. Just don't forget to get yours.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

MSN UK has featured four of my Draw Something drawings in their Best Draw Something feature story: "While most of our drawings don't venture much further than stick men and squiggles, there are those people who manage to put us all to shame with their mobile works of art. We've pulled together a veritable selection over the next few pages..."

The four drawings featured together with other amazing drawings done by other Draw Something users are Goofy, Parrot, Scooby and Mario.

Singapore's National Heritage Board has contributed over 150 selected pieces of art to the Google Art Project, the world's first online art collection with 32,000 art works from all over the world. The website works best with Google Chrome. It's fine with Safari but it
is a little buggy with Firefox. Internet Explorer users need to download
Chrome Frame.

Over 150 history and art museums worldwide have contributed to the project. I've selected 10 of my favourite artworks from National Heritage Board's collection here. Above: Very, Very Happy Victims by Agung Kurniawan, 1996

Malay Fisherman at Changi by Chua Mia Tee, 1977

Offerings by Liu Kang, 1957

Epic Poem of Malaya by Chua Mia Tee, 1955

Jembar Negarane, Cupet Pikirane (Immense Is Its Country, Narrow Is Its Mindset) by Eko Nugroho, 2007

Thursday, April 12, 2012

People in Singapore shouldn't worry about tsunami hitting our little island country. Instead, we should be more worried about buseshitting us on the road. Anyway, I would like to thank everyone for retweeting my earthquake tweets yesterday. As you can see from this pic, my Twitter Interactions page was flooded by all your retweets, etc. Thanks again. You can follow me on Twitter at izreloaded. Indonesia and the Indian Ocean countries were very lucky yesterday. 2 huge earthquakes but no deadly tsunami. We may not be so lucky next time.

Benedetto Papi used Adobe Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5 and InDesign CS5 to create these Star Wars condoms. Each design comes with its own tagline. This Stormtrooper condom says: "Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?" LOL! I love it! Durex should make an entire line of Star Wars condoms like these. I'll buy them all.

You can now take underwater pictures using the iPhone 4S while Scuba diving using the TAT7 iPhone case, a robust, shockproof and waterproof case for your iPhone. The case protects the iPhone when you go scuba diving up to 30m, swimming, snorkeling, white water rafting, jet-skiing, surfing, etc.

Joebot imagines if Nintendo had made video games based on Alfred Hitchcock's movies. He writes: "Had Hitchcock been just a few years behind I'm almost certain that Nintendo would have jumped on the chance to make video-game adaptations of some of his most iconic films. I'm almost certain that their game boxes would have looked a little something like this."

Mr. Iron Robot Theme Park in Jiaxing City displays some 600 exhibits including robots and cartoon figures made of recycled materials from used cars, gears and old machines. The 225-hectare park is located in an abandoned factory. The park also hosts a robot theme gallery displaying human civilization from the Stone Age to the 21st century.

These beautiful portraits of F1 drivers were painted digitally in Photoshop by Piotr Buczkowski. He explains, "First, I made fast low-resolution sketch, to set colors and block composition based on reference photograph. At the beginning my art board is around 72-75 dpi and I'm starting to paint with large brushes and play with the color scheme."

David Smith has created a simple Mac App called InstaBackup to backup all your Instagram photos. He writes: "I want to get my images out of Instagram’s servers and safely onto my own hard-drive. So I took a few hours to whip up a simple Mac app to backup your pictures."

This Lego Star Wars Chess Set puts you in command of the Rebel Alliance or the evil Galactic Empire. The chess set stars Lego Star Wars minifigs: the Rebels in White and the Empire in Black. It includes a black and white Lego Chess baseplate and comes in its own easy to store and carry box.

You can now play over 100 classic Atari games on your iPad and iPhone with the iCade 8-Bitty, a classic retro-styled game controller. It has 8 button controls including 4 face buttons, select, start, and two shoulder buttons plus the D-Pad for movement. The iCade connects to your iPad wirelessly.

Love Cosmetic has posted a map of Japan that shows the average bra cup size (link in Japanese) in each of the Japanese prefectures. Those of you seeking E Cup ladies should make a trip to Kyoto and Gifu. D cup Japanese maidens exist in Osaka, Nara, Hiroshima, Okayama, Fukui, Yamanishi, Niigata, Fukushima and Miyagi. Warning: The D cup ladies from Fukushima and Miyagi may come with radiation. For C cups, just head to Tokyo.

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

For April Fools' Day, Google turned its Google Maps into an 8-bit playground. I couldn't resist to have my own low-res graphic ad­ven­ture and check out how some of our country's famous landmarks look like in 8-bit.

Here's Changi Airport in 8-bit Street View.

The Esplanade.

The Singapore Flyer.

And Marina Bay Sands. You know what? The world does look a little strange in 8-bit.

As Seen On

Producer, Director, DP, Editor. Works on documentaries, commercials and branded content. A Spurs fan, experienced astronomer and occasional ITK. I.Z. Reloaded covers news, pop culture, blogs, websites, gadgets, the fascinating and the weird from a Singapore perspective. The blog is a runner up in both the 2006 Weblog Awards (Best Asia Blog) and the 2004 Asia Blog Awards (Best Singapore Blog). Contact him at izreloaded[at]gmail[dot]com.